By YAO SOUCHOU
IN Chinese society, it is a cultural ideal that leadership should be defined by “moral authority”.
It is a cultural ideal that the former prime minister of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew, and the old men of the Chinese Communist Party are quick to exploit.
The more conventional, less spectacular route to leadership is by the cultural huckstering Chinese called “buying face”.
To “buy face”, those aspiring for power give money and gifts to retirement homes, orphanages, hospitals and so on. It is a highly public and ritualised affair especially, for example, during Chinese New Year when, with the media in tow, there is proof of the generosity and moral character of the donor.
There are, however, serious limitations to this mode of leadership.
Once you depend on money to give you influence, more face-buying money will have to be spent. There is no letting up.
Once you forget to make your visit to the orphanage and have your pictures taken by the press, then you find yourself in the state of anxiety that Julia Roberts must feel when she discovers her face is not on the latest magazine covers.
Leadership by moral authority is much more influential and enduring by comparison. Leadership is about the ability to guide, direct or influence people, and for that he or she has to “lead”, to march in front of the crowd on the way to somewhere better – or worse.
For that, a leader often has to get ahead of the people, public opinion and accepted social trends.
Perhaps for this reason, democratic societies are ambivalent towards their political leaders.
Yes, we will follow, but political leaders need to explain their agendas and whether the new direction is for the good of the country.
And if we disagree, we will express our disapproval or unhappiness in the opinion poll and the ballot boxes.
Given these constraints, political leaders in a democratic society must strive to be “popular”.
To achieve this, there is a whole machinery in place: the public relations hack; media advisers; image makers; and campaign managers – seemingly neutral, professionals whose work is to convince the public that the leader in question is on their side, tirelessly working for their interests and prosperity.
When you think about it, however, a leader eager for public acceptance, who explains every new initiative, may not necessarily be popular.
He or she may come across as being “democratic”, but also, just as easily, as being weak, lacking resolve and pandering to public opinion.
Some might say he or she lacks “leadership qualities”.
Consider former British prime minister Baroness Margaret Thatcher: whether you agree with her politics and the Falklands war or not, you would have to concede that she had tons of leadership quality.
The resolute “Iron Lady” galvanised the nation after years of feeble Labour rule, a recession and high unemployment.
The Falklands was a “nice little war” – a low impact, short endurance conflict (in military speak) – that recalled the good old days of empire and naval glory.
She was no ditherer. The domineering, agenda-setting leadership won her huge popularity and three consecutive terms as prime minister between 1979 and 1990.
However, with the coming of the 90s, the European Union and currency reform, her homey nationalism had become dogmatism; her colleagues in the Conservative Party had to reject her for being an electoral liability.
If the fate of Margaret Thatcher is any guide, leadership in a democratic society is a contingent, transactional one.
The future of the leader is to an extent dependent on those he or she leads.
The onus is on the leader to show that he or she is doing good, is in tune with the times and with public opinions but is just slightly ahead of the game without alienating the people.
The ability to “lead” sits on a knife-edge, subjected to the vagrancies of history and electoral favour.
Leadership in a democratic society calls for a special kind of political skill.
It is a skill that ensures the leader’s political vision must gel with public opinion, yet still keeps their ability to lead.
This “two steps forward and one step back” type of politics is hard for those with a messianic bent and for those who are self-assured.
They are likely to be impatient with the clumsiness of the democratic system with its check and counter-checking of governmental power
In Singapore, minister mentor Kuan Yew’s prosaic terms, people cannot be allowed to “blackmail” the government at the ballot-box when its harsh, unpopular policies are doing good work and bring prosperity to all.
History is full of leaders, who led without eagerly courting the approval of the masses.
These were unique individuals, ushered to prominence as much by the times and circumstances in which they lived, as by their personality and Machiavellian skills.
For example, there were Caesar and the Gallic wars; Hitler and the Nazis; Lenin and the Russian Revolution; Mao Tse-tung and the Long March.
In the morally more positive realm: Gandhi and the India Independence Movement; and Nelson Mandela and the anti-apartheid struggle.
Women too were history’s chosen: Jeanne D’Arc (Joan of Arc) and the French victory at Orléans; and Mother Theresa in the Calcutta slums.
Historical conditions gave these leaders a strong sense of destiny and their missions a social and political urgency.
Given this urgency, some would also assume for themselves the licence for ruthless repression, cutting down those who stood in the way of the “great cause”.
In all events, great leaders are not merely figureheads. They guide, influence, cajole, inspire, discipline and punish. And people often follow with a fierce and desperate passion.
Great leaders evoke people’s deep-seated need to follow, sometimes making them abandon their will and submit to the fervour and, one may say, joy of submission.
But how do we account for great leaders’ power to make us do so this?
Great leaders were made by the conditions in which they lived: Hitler rose to power in the political vacuum left during the twilight of the German Weimer Republic, Mao in the chaos in China after the brutal Japanese occupation and rule by the corrupt Nationalist regime.
History was crucial, as was their political skill, in seizing the opportunity and galvanising the suffering populace.
There must, however, be “externalities”. These leaders’ driving personalities, talent for clandestine organisations, near messianic visions and brilliant oratory skill that move and fire the crowd, often ignore the “individual factor”.
The crucial question is: if millions are born into the same world, why do only a handful of exceptional individuals emerge to change it, and light up the dreary gloom of the quotidian?
Confucianism has some fruitful things to say on this issue. Confucius spoke of the importance of people to act and behave ethically according to the prescribed rites and etiquette known as Li.
Li with its structure of ritual form binds people to tradition, but that is not all.
Confucius’ great insight is that ethical behaviours are at best things of daily practices; they do not come from contemplation of the abstract, or constant existential anxiety (“Am I doing right? Am I being kind?”).
Li is praxis, you might say, welding ethical ideas with practices.
When Confucius addressed his disciples, he began to ask important questions about the State and the power of those who ran it.
You get an indelible sense from reading the analects that those with political power had failed the people and his own ideals of political rule, and his students must be made vanguards of his ideas and vision.
For Confucius, the highest calling of men of virtue was service in the government.
To instill virtue (jen) in State officials and administrators is the formula for an orderly and a prosperous society.
“To be excellent when engaged in administration is to be like the Northern Star. As it remains in its one position, all the other stars surround it,” he wrote.
Men of jen should be the guardians of the State – “the leaders of men” – because they exercise power responsibly and morally.
And to exercise morals and power responsibly is to be inspiring.
To Confucius, jen or virtue is the mark of a great leader because he (or she) embodies these very qualities, and by their actions and examples moves people to act with the same ethical ideals.
There is almost a modern feel to this point: that some “distinguished individuals” seem to hold enormous, magical appeal to their followers.
Confucius praised the serene dignity of moral conduct and was confident of its power to persuade and influence; (“Excellence does not remain alone, it is sure to attract neighbours”).
In the West, social philosophers like Max Weber preferred a less sedate affair. For him, some leaders are endowed with exceptional, even superhuman qualities; and these qualities attract following and form the basis of a social, religious or political movement.
Leaders have the special gift of charisma.
Charisma is bestowed on unique individuals almost by the divine.
Charismatic leaders exercise authority not by tradition and law, but by their special personal qualities that inspire excessive passion and an enthusiastic following.
Great leaders thus have a special advantage when it comes to getting things done and getting people to go along with them.
Charisma, or the extraordinary moral goodness that Confucius called jen, compels people to rally to the call, perhaps out of their own needs and inner promptings. Some rare individuals embody both jen and charisma.
This explains the universal appeal of Gandhi, Nelson Mandela and the Dalai Lama far beyond the original national and cultural significance that first brought them to prominence.
Most importantly, the combination of charisma and moral goodness surely distinguishes them from other “great leaders” of evil – like of Hitler and Stalin. – onlineopinion

* The writer teaches anthropology at The University of Sydney with a focus on the Chinese Diaspora in South-East Asia.

Finding an effective way to send money home
DESPITE tougher immigration and settlement laws, the number of people migrating for work across political borders has risen sharply throughout the world in recent years.
Internationally, an estimated 200 million migrant workers send remittances of more than K800 billion a year to their home countries.
If they were a single company, the income generated by migrant workers would place them third on the Fortune 500 list, a report in the NZ Herald said.
For most Pacific Islands, like many small developing countries around the world, remittances are a vital part of their economies. Over 40% of Tonga’s gross domestic product, a quarter of Samoa’s and nearly 7% of Fiji’s comes from this single channel.
For some countries, it is the biggest single source of income.
Growing numbers of migrant workers and rising incomes have seen remittances to Pacific Island nations triple to the equivalent of about K1,236 billion in the past 10 years.
Rapid growth in remittance volumes has turned the money transfer business into one of the fastest-growing segments in the global financial sector.
While investments in technology and better regulatory practices have seen money transfer costs and fees decline in many parts of the world, they have remained high in the Pacific.
Against widely-accepted international best practice for fees of between 1% and 5% of the amount transferred, money transfer companies and other financial institutions charge anything between 15% and 40% in the Pacific region – including New Zealand and Australia.
After a study of work-related migration in the Pacific Islands region, the World Bank last year published a report titled At Home and Away: Expanding Job Opportunities for Pacific Islanders Through Labour Mobility.
It expressed concern at the high transfer fees that were putting undue financial strain on the economies of the islands.
In Auckland recently, the Sydney-based senior World Bank economist for the Pacific Islands, Dr Manjula Luthria said the high transaction fees were eroding the vital income support that remittances gave to the islands.
“It goes against best practice in other high-remittance zones in the world,” she said.
In recent years, transaction costs and fees for transfers between the United States and Mexico have fallen by as much as 60%, thanks to changes in regulatory practice, product innovation and stronger competition.
Other countries have also worked to reduce fees.
As a follow-up to the 2006 report, Dr Luthria’s office in Sydney took the lead in promoting consultation between Pacific Island communities in New Zealand and Australia and the World Bank during the past year.
This interaction had shown that Pacific Islanders were struggling to meet the high cost of sending money back home, Dr Luthria said.
The study and consultations were recently presented and discussed at a top-level meeting with representatives from New Zealand and Australian banks, credit card providers and money transfer companies, as well as Australian aid agency AusAID, and the central banks of Australia, New Zealand, Tonga, Samoa and Fiji.
Several issues have to be addressed before money transfer from New Zealand and Australia to the Pacific Islands can become easier and cheaper: the financial sector needs to consider alternative products that have worked well in similar environments in other parts of the world and the islands’ central banks need to strengthen reporting and disclosure requirements.
But the recent dialogue produced a positive response from all concerned parties, Dr Luthria said.
Over the coming months, the World Bank will continue working with the private sector, the central banks and the island finance ministries and regulatory bodies to make money transfers more efficient and cost-effective.
Following the meeting and the agreement of all parties to work together, Dr Luthria said that concrete initiatives could be expected over the coming months, leading to an improvement in remittance services and a reduction in money transfer fees with the year or so. – PNS